[Occasional alcohol drinkers and chronic alcoholics. Comparison of two patient groups from the viewpoint of accident surgery].

Patients who suffer an accident after alcohol consumption can be differentiated into 2 groups: patients which drink alcohol occasionally and chronic alcoholics. We examined prospectively in-patients treated after suffering a trauma in an alcoholised state. The diagnosis acute alcohol intoxication was made by a breath-alcohol-analysis, the diagnosis chronic alcoholism by a shortened MAST-test. In the average chronic alcoholics were 12 years older than acute intoxicated. Family background of chronic alcoholics was more often disrupted and social status lower than in acute alcoholics. For the acute alcoholics a car crash, for the chronic alcoholics a fall was the main trauma cause. In over 50% both patient groups suffered a minor head injury. Chronic alcoholics had a twice as long hospital stay (16.1 +/- 3.2 vs. 8.5 +/- 1.1 days), needed more specialist consultations (84% vs. 60%) and developed more complications (40% vs 16%) than the acute alcohol intoxicated. The ISS (Injury Severity Score) was the same for both patient groups (6.7 +/- 0.7 vs. 7.1 +/- 0.8) and had no prognostic value for the group of the chronic alcoholics. On the basis of the present findings it is advisable to check the diagnosis alcohol intoxication and to look whether chronic alcoholism is present whenever a drunken patient is admitted.